Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Racism. Part 1

Racism in all
its guises represents a universal need to explain human weakness.We look at what others have and see in
ourselves the inadequacy of our own existence. Instead of being satisfied with
striving to better ourselves, too often we are driven by malice and greed. Or we are provided with an expectation of
superior virtue which justifies all of our subsequent actions. For example, central
to Islamic theology is the belief that the Muslim has already reached ultimate
perfection in all that is human.What an
ethical catastrophe that makes for its adherents.We are disappointed with what we possess and
jealous of the success of others.We expected
that as the twentieth century progressed we would eradicate prejudice but
instead, fly-on-the-wall programs and growing global insecurity remind us of
our deficiency.In its organized way
racism is no more than a grubby political tool that serves to unite ‘us’
against ‘them’ by explaining our individual as well as our collective failures.

We may look at
individual occurrences and see similarities in Uganda (Black against Indian),
Rwanda (between Tutsi and Hutu), Europe (against Romany and Jews); Swedes
against Finns, Protestant against Russian Orthodox, in fact in Europe the list
is endless, Turkey (Kurds and Armenians), Iraq (anyone not ethnically Arab and
Muslim; Shiite verses Sunni), Sudan (Arab against Black), Palestine (Arab against
Jew), Gaza (Muslim against Jew) and Egypt (Arab - Muslim against Coptic Christian).

Violent acts of
racist expression, as well as the petty construction of a narrative of
discrimination are encouraged by society because the perpetrators know they
will not be punished.How similar is
that to the low level bigotry here in Western society where we too often sacrifice
sensitivity to free speech? Selective
discrimination and legalized violence encourage the bigot.It all has to start somewhere.

That is not to
say that society totters on the brink of anarchic self-destruction.If the urge to destroy were instinctive then our
species would be extinct.If violent
action were the natural character of humankind there would be no need for
anthropologists to study anything other than ‘civilized’ society because a
self-destructive spiral of violence would have obliterated pre-modern
societies.Laws regulate and control,
they are essential to the orderly cooperation between large units of people
living in close proximity to each other.

We are
psychologically conditioned to respond to change with stress reactions because
instinctively we know that it represents a threat and not the natural
inclination of the human condition. The outcome of war tends towards order otherwise
it would weaken the society that wages it and eventually lead to its downfall.This is the reason that a responsible
administration values stability and not chaos.The human condition is predicated upon predictability and not flux.

Violence is
unnatural and harmful, and bigotry is learned. So we try to create justification
for both by fashioning a narrative that first rationalizes fear then justifies
discrimination. It is by these means that legitimacy is given to a perceived or
concocted threat.

Comfort and
intelligence does not inoculate us against hate.Intelligence does not immunize us against the
cultural baggage we carry with us; it far too often afflicts us and drives us
to speak with our passion rather than with our brains.

The articulation
of bigotry on an organized scale is usually orchestrated by people of wealth
and education.Too often I have debated with people whose
knowledge was based on blind acceptance of lies, and propaganda that has been
manipulated to create a new reality based on falsehood or less than half the
story.The bigot only wants to be
reassured by their comfortable prejudices. They will seek out whatever reinforces
their perceptions and will deny the obvious deception or outright mistruths
because their certainty makes precision of fact irrelevant.

Recently I
became embroiled in a ‘debate’ on twitter, we reached an impasse and my
adversary demanded that I look at four maps – they allegedly showed the spread
of Jewish and Arab populations in Palestine prior to 1948. I ignored the first
three as I did not understand them. But the final map was of 1948 mandate Palestine and was colored
completely black except at the top, along the northern coast starting with
Nahariyah and hugging the Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian borders down to
Tiberius.

The color black
represented Arab Palestine; the white dots that speckled the northern border
represented the Jewish communities of Palestine.

The map was a
lie.

According to this
map there were no major Jewish concentrations of population in any of the
cities prior to 1948.Jerusalem
therefore did not have a Jewish majority from as early as the year 1828; Tel
Aviv and Haifa
were both Judenfrei.

The Palestinian-Arab-Muslim narrative is based on the
total repudiation of Jewish history.

My twitter
accuser (for according to her I was a ‘racist’ and ‘evil’) is a seventeen year
old White Dutch female.She is not just Israel’s
problem, not only an antisemite but she also represents the bigger issue of
racism.Grab the child and fill their
head with lies and deceit and two more generations (if she reproduces) have
been corrupted, their minds and hearts poisoned by mindless hate.This acolyte of bigotry is the foot soldier
of the present struggle and the future war. She is immune to the truth,
closeted in absolute faith.

The fascist-racist,
my Dutch interlocutor, was only interested in a dialogue if she could control
the narrative.The self-worth of the
fascist-racist is increased by our debasement. That is why they readily ignore
the truth.They have not abandoned the
totalitarian personality’s need for human sacrifice as a means of validating
their delusional superior virtue.How
far has their poison infused society? The acceptance of their lies as truth is
the observable measure of society’s contamination as this toxic venom travels towards
the centre.In the new era of Western
McCarthyism the Liberal / Left agenda is racist by its indifference to Islamism
and Arab colonialism.We ignore their
complicity in this war against humanity to our peril.

The ubiquity of
the media and now also the social media helps to prepare us to act in
accordance with our fears, they also prime us on how to respond.It is far easier to spread a lie on the web
or though twitter than it is to undo the damage it causes.

We are fortunate
to be living in a time when we can be part of history and in our own lifetime
we know that we are participants in an ongoing drama.The terrible downside to this intimacy with
history is that many people view history as nothing more than their personal
statement of particular prejudice and this is highlighted by journalists for
whom the story is more important than the truth.In homage to Political Fascism many modern
day journalists are content to repeat the lie as if it is truth; the more often
they repeat it, the greater the prominence afforded to the lie, the more likely
it is that the lie becomes the truth.

As an example: Racists
often use the argument that Jews who suffered during the Shoah should not
behave unfairly towards others (specifically Palestinians – who are defined by
their racism to exclude people of Jewish Faith). In fact, this line of reasoning is almost universal
in its acceptance amongst the educated Western classes.This ethereal halo effect is an illusion, the
purity of those that suffer, is a perverse and wholly invalid argument.I have only ever heard it applied to Jews.We would never dream of telling an African
American that because they were once slaves they should be innately more peaceful, more tolerant and more accepting
of pain than their White or Latino brothers and sisters.We do not ever demand they turn the other
cheek.It is counterfactual to claim
that suffering ennobles and thereby creates conditions of tolerance towards those
people that persecute or threaten you. That is completely daft!

And
intelligence? Being smart far too often carries co-morbid conditions such as
arrogance and haughtiness; an intelligent person will rationalize a tendency to
disregard the truth because it conflicts with a chosen path and this can easily
be justified by reference to a higher purpose that ignores the facts.

3 comments:

"Racists often use the argument that Jews who suffered during the Shoah should not behave unfairly towards others (specifically Palestinians" - I would go further and say - people will not acknowledge the fact that today's Palestinians are the heirs of the same Nazism, with its anti-Jewish genocidal intentions, no matter how convincingly wrapped in the language of justice and human rights. There was overwhelming support for the pro-Nazi Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. The man was never called to account for his crimes - that's why the Arab world has never been de-Nazified.

Feedback I received explained that in Sudan it was Islam rather than Arab, against Christians (not Black). In fact if we compare the methodology of Nazism against Jews (and others), the German military empowered the local militias as well as local citizens to kill their neighbours. It lessened the stress on German soldiers who were 'affected' by the war crimes they committed! In the Sudan it was initially, North against South, and mostly Arab Muslims against Christians (and Animists). After this particular attempted genocide Arab Muslims began an extermination programme against the ethnically black and non-Arab tribe of Darfur. Was a staged programme of genocide planned this way? An Arab takeover of Sudan is ongoing and this Arab colonialist invasion was one of the causes of the war between Sudan and Chad.

In fact what I meant to write was that it was initially black Muslims killing Christians and animists and only then Arabs killing not racially Arab - Black Muslims - this is analogous to the Nazi tactic.